Google discloses size of its ad network

Earlier this week Google disclosed the revenue shares for their two main AdSense products. It appears Google is taking that "spirit of greater transparency" one step further and has now revealed the size of its extensive and lucrative ad network.

In an usual step, Google has released figures that allow the calculation of the size of their ad network empire.

Employing over 20,000 people worldwide, 12,000 of which are employed in the U.S., Google's ad network spans 1.5 million websites and advertisers, according to the Associated Press (AP) who calculated the network size from a state-by-state breakdown of Google Inc.'s operations the company released Tuesday.

"The greater transparency is occurring amid increasing regulatory, political and legal scrutiny of the power that Google has amassed while building the Internet's most profitable ad network around the Web's most popular search engine," reported the AP.

Earlier this week Google disclosed the revenue shares for its AdSense products, revealing that AdSense for content publishers take home 68% of revenue, while AdSense for search participants earn 51% of earned revenue.

"Of course, we can't guarantee that the revenue share will never change (our costs may change significantly, for example), but we don't have any current plans to do so for any AdSense product," explained Neal Mohan, Vice President, Product Management, in a recent blog post.

"Over the next few months we'll begin showing the revenue shares for AdSense for content and AdSense for search right in the AdSense interface."